Superstar and all-time great Manny Pacquiao will be enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame next year. And no one can say Manny does not deserve the honor.
All he achieved in the ring, the stuff of legend indeed, always was going to see Pac-Man into the HOF. So many world titles were won, and many fellow Hall of Famers were beaten. This brings us to the fight that put Manny on the world stage in a truly shocking fashion.
Going into his December 6, 2008 fight with fellow great Oscar De La Hoya, Pacquiao may have been surprised at how some good judges were picking against him. The thinking in some quarters was Pacquiao was just too small for De La Hoya. Instead, his speed blazing, Pacquiao was to dish out a quite disturbing to watch beating on a weight-drained De La Hoya.
De La Hoya had won titles from 130 to 154 pounds, while Pacquiao had won his first world title down at flyweight. Pacquiao had moved up through the weights since then, yet he had once fought above the 130-pound limit.
Surely the fight – the brainchild of Larry Merchant – would result in one big, commanding win for Oscar?
The fight sold out within record time, and the live gate success was handsomely matched, indeed surpassed, by the pay-per-view numbers it pulled in. The fight was a gross mismatch, but not how fans thought it would be.
Fighting at welterweight – Oscar weighing in at 145 pounds, Manny going up from 135 to tip-in at 142 – the two future Hall of Famers shocked us all for different reasons.
De La Hoya, who had hired a legendary training duo in Angelo Dundee and Nacho Beristain, appeared disturbingly emaciated at the opening bell, even after rehydrating after the weigh-in. Oscar looked shockingly frail, and as the fight wore on, he looked even worse.
Pacquiao, with his blinding speed and zinging power, was administering a beating to De La Hoya. It wasn’t long before the fight so many fans had been looking forward to became tough to watch.
De La Hoya had proven his greatness in several fights and had nothing. De La Hoya was a sitting duck with no chance of winning. Pacquiao busted De La Hoya up and raked his foe’s head around with stinging punches thrown from multiple angles, and Pac-Man showed no remorse.
Trained by Freddie Roach, the Filipino southpaw dynamo was beating De La Hoya to the punch, he was outmanoeuvring him, he was throwing and landing so much more leather. Pac-Man was utterly dominating the fight in every way. It was, for the millions of De La Hoya fans, as sad as it was glorious for the millions of Pacquiao fans.
In the end, De La Hoya had no choice; he was pulled out on his stool after his entire career’s eight most brutal one-sided rounds. Pacquiao was the new superstar, the man to watch, the new PPV king.
And we all know how much additional greatness Pacquiao picked up over the coming years.
